Methods of this type are used everywhere today where electronic and electrical devices of various types that are intended to exchange information with one another for the purpose of data communication are connected to one another, in a sometimes complicated way, by means of data lines and control lines. For instance, in the audio sector for example, the data communication between data sources networked with one another on the one hand—for example CD players, radio receivers, cassette recorders, microphones—and the data sinks connected to them on the other hand—for example amplifier-loudspeaker combinations—can be controlled by a method described above.
The network subscribers of various types of such a communication network are connected to one another by data lines in such a way that the data stream passes each of the subscribers of the communication network one after the other. This produces a communication network with a ring configuration, with particular advantages in particular for mobile applications, for example when used in a motor vehicle, or when used in the household, for example a multimedia network. The data transmission typical for the method stated above permits a simple connection of data sources and data sinks, which typically send and receive data continuously. The data transmission usually takes place synchronously with respect to a clock-pulse signal, since the quality requirements today, for example in the automotive sector, can generally only be met with acceptable expenditure by synchronous data transmission.
In the case of many communication networks, the network subscribers have the same sampling frequency and the same data width as the communication network. In the case of data transmission, a subscriber acting as a data source provides sampled data and transmits them in the form of a bit group to a corresponding data field of the communication network. An addressed network subscriber can subsequently read out this bit group that has just been sent via the communication network.
However, many communication networks having a ring configuration are increasingly expected to meet the requirement that their sampling frequency is very much greater than the respective sampling frequency of the network subscribers. Such a communication network is that known as the MOST network (Media Oriented Synchronous Transceiver Network), which is used in particular in the automotive sector and typically has an integral multiple of the sampling frequency of the connected subscribers. Here, in each case a network subscriber with a low sampling frequency transmits data to the MOST network. Since the sampling rate of the subscriber is a fraction of the sampling rate of the network, after the data transmission of a data burst of the sending network subscriber, the communication network is not fully utilized for the remaining duration of a time interval that the sending subscriber requires. During this time, however, the communication network is blocked for the other network subscribers, as a result of which utilization capacity of the communication network is given away. The utilization of the communication network is in this case only at most a corresponding fraction of its maximum data transmission capacity.